This was not a school in Connecticut, a movie theater in Colorado, or a college town in California.

It was a hospital office right here in Delaware County.

The ugly, frightening scenario was the same – a troubled person with a gun. It’s a deadly combination, one that proved so again on Thursday when Richard Plotts arrived at the Wellness Center at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby Borough.

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An agitated Plotts went into an office with his caseworker and a doctor. Things quickly spiraled downward from there. He refuses to sit down and eventually pulls a handgun from his waistband. He is apparently upset about the hospital’s policy banning weapons.

What could have been another mass murder spree has begun. Only this one has a different ending. Plotts is not the only person in that office with a gun.

Dr. Lee Silverman pulls out his own weapon. The two struggle, exchanging gunshots. Dr. Silverman is shot in the thumb and suffers a graze wound to the head. He hits Plotts three times. The suspect eventually is subdued by two other hospital workers.

Before picking up the latest chapter in the heated conversation over guns in this country, let us note this. A life was lost in the Wellness Center on Thursday. Theresa Hunt was merely doing her job, a health care worker who became a victim of one of the nation’s unhealthiest scourges – guns that manage to get into the hands of people who should not have them. We mourn her passing and offer condolences to her family.

We join them in asking – yet again – how someone with Plotts’ long record of mental health issues and a laundry list of criminal charges, including felonies, still managed to get his hands on guns. It’s pretty easy, actually. Someone who is intent on getting a gun, very often illegally, will do so.

Plotts will now be dealt with – once again – by the criminal justice system that up to last Thursday was unable to keep a gun out of his hands. Investigators searching his apartment on Saturday found two more weapons.

The question is familiar but no less haunting. How did Plotts get his guns, and who supplied them. Until that link is made, and the supply of illegal guns cut off, we will wait warily for the next instance.

That the toll exacted by Plotts was not far greater is due to something that has been debated for years. Plotts was not the only person in that office with a gun. Dr. Silverman had one and used it, despite what is a clear hospital policy against weapons on its campus.

The next day District Attorney Jack Whelan was even more emphatic, noting his belief that Plotts went to the office that day with an intent to kill. In fact, he had another 39 bullets and Whelan indicated his belief he would have continued to shoot and kill if he had not been stopped.

“If the doctor did not have a firearm, (and) the doctor did not utilize the firearm, he’d be dead today, and I believe that other people in that facility would also be dead,” Whelan said.

It is the exact argument so often hailed by gun rights activists: The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Make no mistake. Dr. Silverman is a good guy in this case. We’re heartened to see Mercy Fitzgerald also hail his actions and eagerly await his return to work. He apparently will not face discipline despite violating policy.

The gun rights backers no doubt will make Silverman’s actions Exhibit A in one of their leading arguments for more guns, not less, in society. They will again echo what might have happened if a teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School. They advocate for training in the proper handling and use of firearms.

The problem is too many people have no interest in being either trained or responsible.

People like Richard Plotts, and the people who armed him.

They are the menace that continues to fester at the heart of the gun argument in this country. Not the responsible gun owner.

The fact that Thursday’s results could have been much worse will be little comfort to the family, friends and co-workers of Theresa Hunt.

We commend Dr. Silverman for his heroic actions, and await justice for Theresa Hunt, an arrest and charges against the person or persons who put a gun in the hands of Richard Plotts.